Gridiron Crossing

The Iron Horse Saloon was no different than a hundred other smoked filled watering holes in cow towns along all of the well used trails where hard men ride the grub line, or just ride the open country looking for space. It was not unusual in this vast land to see educated or skilled professionals drifting West to put distance between themselves and some bad memories or troubles they had encountered while living in a more civilized part of the world. Here things were different, no one really cared about your past, all they were concerned with was the here and now, and whether you were able to quit yourself as a man. A man's word means everything to the folks eking out a living in this harsh land. If you agree to do a job you are expected to do it or die trying. If you owe a dept then you paid it no matter how long it takes or how many broncs you have to bust to make it happen. This is a place where people of all walks of life are on socially equal terms, it just doesn't matter that you have been somewhere else, here you are what you are based on what you did yesterday and last night. Strangers are looked upon with suspicion and mistrust, you are green, wet behind the ears, a dude, a tenderfoot or worse a tin horn until you are proved otherwise.

I was sitting in my familiar corner with my back to the far wall, the back door, locked from the inside, was just through the wash room to my right, and a half open shaded window was on my left. I had managed to live this long by reducing the level of risk whenever possible, you never knew when trouble was going to step through the front door, and I had developed this phobia of being trapped in a room full of rough hombres, each with a gun in one hand and a knife in the other, when all hell broke loose and it was every man for himself. So I wanted be seated near a fast exit, and I had need of a good line of sight over the entire room. I'm not a coward and I would kill any man who suggested that I was, but I learned a long time ago that those who usually survive trouble are the ones who are more prudent and who think ahead. The best way to survive trouble is to avoid it whenever possible, then if you can't avoid it the next best thing is to be prepared to meet it head on with all of the fury and firepower that you can muster.

There was nothing unusual about this night, there were friendly card games going on in the main room, a hand would be played and there would be some cussing, then some bragging and chuckles from that rounds winner, and the obligatory “ante up boys” would ring out and a new hand would be dealt. Some grizzled old timers were sitting at the bar talking to one another just above a whisper. I heard bits and pieces about old trails, hidden canyons, pools of cool water that appeared in unlikely desert locations, and of tough men from the past that they had ridden the lonely hills with. I liked this town, the people were just ordinary folks that in any other place you might meet on their way to church or at a Spring festival, here there were no churches and no time or inclination for sophisticated parties. This was

Gridiron Crossing, it was hot, it was dirty, and it was mean. This was a man's town in a man's world and those that couldn't cut it were soon buried in its long shadow. The business owners, such as they were, had all managed to come West with a small stake and enough material possessions to get them started. They consisted of a Livery, a General Store, the Saloon and what passed for a hotel.

These few business owners were just men who had learned to read and write and could do figures on paper, well except for Gustof at the livery who was also the town blacksmith. Gus as we called him, no one could even begin to pronounce his last name, could only speak bits and pieces of English. But he could communicate whatever he needed to and he was probably the best and most profitable business man in town. Owning the largest wagon and the strongest team of mules. Gus made the supply run for the entire town every quarter. This supplemented the town between hauls by a major supply train heading for Fort Beulah that came through twice a year and it provided Gus with a sizable income from shipping fees.

Bernard Young owns the general store, Barney, is a short balding man who is constantly rolling large wades of rope tobacco around from cheek to cheek as he works. He can spit long black streaks of foul smelling swill into strategically placed cuspidors over impossible distances. Amazingly, Barney is able to do this through broken and deeply stained teeth, which have huge gaps where a tooth here or there has found its own way into the soiled spit pot, each one striking the edge with a metallic clang. The store, if you want to call it that, is no more than a large shack or a small barn with rough hewn boards for a floor. It can hold several barrels and large wooden crates of staple foods and hardware supplies along with some tools that are either hanging up or leaning against the walls. Almost everything that comes out of those barrels and boxes in the store is measured out for cash sale on a well worn set of scales and placed into whatever container the customer brought with him. On rare occasions a customer might get a paper tote, a burlap sack or even more rare a tin of some type out of Barney for their purchase, but always begrudgingly.

Sam Sworington runs the Saloon, which also serves as the town bank since Sworington managed to somehow haul a five hundred pound Herring Safe across the frontier. I'm told that he used a big two wheeled cart and a team of oxen, but it seems like sort of a miracle to me. Ranchers from hundreds of miles away ride into town after the Spring cattle drives and deposit rolls of cash and bags of gold with Sam for safe keeping. Honest Big Sam they call him, tall and barrel chested, wide at the hips and standing on huge legs and feet. He almost always has a big smile on his dark black face that reveals one gold capped tooth right in front, it is generally the first thing newcomers see when they come in the door and that usually gives me a split second to size them up before they have a chance to look in my direction. If I ever see Sam stop smiling I know that it is time to make sure my exits are not blocked and my hand instantly and unconsciously slides down to the butt of my Russian .44, it is a sure sign of trouble in a place where trouble often means that someone is about to die. Sam himself keeps two

weapons close at hand, the main weapon of choice is a short club with a bulbous knotty end, this he uses to break up fights that threaten to turn into brawls. The other is a sawed off double barrel 10 gauge Greener that Sam keeps in the safe room, which can only be accessed from behind the bar. A man could sit behind that safe room door with the Greener and hold off a small army, and no one in his right mind would want to be the first man through that door. You couldn't pay me to fire that gun, just the thought of it makes my wrists ache and I cringe to think of the type injuries a shooter could incur from such a recoil if not properly braced for it. But Big Sam undauntedly demonstrated it's effectiveness one Summer afternoon by firing both barrels into a weathered outhouse door that had been recently replaced. At ten yards that door had been pulverized into a few small chunks and a lot of splinters. Those large boned wrists on Sam and his tree trunks for arms barely moved when he fired, but the concussion was felt in more ways than one throughout the entire town. Word traveled far and wide that in order to rob our town you were going to have to get past Big Sam and his devastating cannon.

Doc Jones runs the hotel, which is really just a large shotgun style house with seven partitions to make small rooms just big enough for a cot to sleep on and room on the sides to walk around the bed or to store some gear. Each room has a single window covered by yellowed and frayed shades and a small crude table that serves as a night stand. One of the rooms is double the size with a larger bed and two windows and two nightstands, this room has been dubbed the honeymoon suite and is rented out by the night to married couples that are passing through, but mostly by the hour to the customers looking for some recreation time with Doc's “sister” Etta Sue. Doc is not a real doctor in the formal sense of the word and Etta Sue is not really his sister, but if you need a tooth pulled, a broken bone set, or a wound treated you go to see Doc. Rough as he is, Doc is still the best that we have and Etta Sue is the best kind of nurse a man could ever desire when he is laid up in bed injured or sick, so everyone is glad to have them around during times of such need. Doc is also who you see, whether male or female, if you need a haircut, shave or a bath. When the Grissom boy, who does chores for Doc, starts hauling a lot of clean well water, then folks that need to freshen up will hurry over to get their name on the bath privileges list. The water gets changed out and heated every other day, and Doc runs it as a first come first serve style of business.

These few men represented the town of Gridiron Crossing, and they are the reason that I'm here. The town, they surmised, needed a Sheriff if anyone was going to be able to conduct business and live safely in such a remote and violent land. I had received the wire while working as a deputy in Kansas City, apparently I had unknowingly been building a reputation as a smart hard nosed kid who was good with a gun, but rarely had to use one. Pete Montgomery is my name, but as often happens when you start to get a reputation you also get tagged with another more descriptive name. They are calling me the Pistol, or just Pistol for short. Not to my face mind you, but I can hear'em whispering in the background as I walk by or enter a room. The fact that I wasn't a kid anymore and that I had worked jobs in the silver mines of Nevada and before that with the Lumber Jacks in the Ohio Valley when it was still the frontier didn't seem to matter. What did matter was that I had strapped on a gun and walked alongside some of

the grittiest, and sometimes most merciless lawmen that had ever graced the planet. The people of Gridiron were hard, well worn and mostly good people living in a hard land, and if they were to survive as a town they needed to bring in some law and order. The town was smack dab in the middle of some of the roughest territory on the Continent, there were honest ranchers as well as other outfits that consisted of nothing but rustlers and horse thieves. There were drifters, miners, outlaws, bounty hunters and hard cases of every flavor, and on occasion you might even see a wild Indian or a Mexican bandit on the run. The one thing that I have never been accused of is having good sense, so I wired back and stated my terms, now here I sit in a place not fit for anything but sand scorpions and sidewinders, and me with a great big target on my chest in the form of a five pointed star. The bold letters S-H-E-R-I-F-F that has been stamped out in the tin means little to the kind of visitors that we get in Gridiron. There is no support from any Government save the city council. There are no permanent judges, one is simply elected to hear a case if needed. There is no jurisdictional law, no Territory or State Governor, there is just me and the people of this town, and I like it that way.

With the relaxed mood and a slow night I barely heard the squeak of the bat wing doors as the stranger entered the saloon. When he looked over at the glint off of Big Sam's tooth I noted the leathered unshaven face, the hard set to his eyes and the tightly clinched square jaw. His next step revealed the tied down gun, loosely fit in it's holster with the thong menacingly off and pushed back away from the hammer. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the creases of Sam's mouth begin to turn down and my hand was already in motion, just that quick the quiet lazy evening was interrupted by someone on a mission, someone that wasn't afraid of the campfire talk about a dangerous lawman in a two bit cow town that you didn't want to mess with. This was a steel eyed killer with only one thing on his mind, was it for revenge, was he a gun for hire, was he someone seeking a reputation? For whatever reason he was here, in this town and at this time and he had obviously come for me. There was no small talk, no wasted time or motion. Those eyes were in a death stare and they had turned toward me an instant after crossing the threshold of the door. His gun was clearing leather as the dim light from the coal oil lamp behind me glinted off of the barrel of my own gun coming up from under the table. A gun that was held with a vice grip in a hand being driven by an instantaneous burst of adrenalin triggered by a mind used to living on the edge of danger. Would I be fast enough? Could I still concentrate and steady my hand to shoot straight enough? This is the game in the small town of Gridiron, this is my own dynasty and my ultimate destiny. But right here, in a split second of time, any lapse of judgment or skill on my part and it could all be taken away.

To be continued...